Friday, October 2 2020 | ASIA TODAY INTERNATIONAL - Reporting the Business that Matters in Asia
BEIJING - China's National People's Congress has approved amendments to the 1999 Securities Law, including stricter information disclosure and tougher penalties for fraud.
NEW YORK - An agreement between Canada, Mexico and the United States to renew the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entered into 25 years ago may allow Mexico to regain competitiveness and its market share in the US economy, to the detriment of China, according to a report from BBVA Bank.
TAIPEI - Taiwan's President, Tsai Ing-wen, will be re-elected as Taiwan's President in national elections on January 11, according to final polls released today. The polls suggest she could exceed her 25-point victory of 2016, when she took 56% of the total votes cast, against 31% for the major Opposition party, the KMT.
BEIJING - China's new Encryption Law will regulate all types of encryption used in China and follows implementation on December 1 of what the State Council describes as the Multi-Level Protection Scheme 2.0 -- a cybersecurity law that expands on the types of IT systems requiring Government inspection.
SEOUL - Meeting at a bi-lateral summit in Beijing, South Korea's President, Moon Jae-in, and Chinese President Xi Jinping have reaffirmed the desire of both sides to co-operate for peace on the Korean Peninsula.
MADRID - In a report detailing global trends in migration, the Spanish banking group BBVA says there were 272 million migrants in the world in 2019, 23.0% more than in 2010, with Mexico ranking as dthe country with the second-largest number of migrants globally -- in 2019 there are 12.4 million Mexican migrants in the U.S.
KUALA LUMPUR - Global raatings agency Standard and Poors today affirmed its A- rating for Sarawak, saying that an exceptional budgetary performance and liquidity would likely mitigate the Malaysian State's elevated debt, supporting its creditworthiness.
SHANGHAI - Ant Financial, a fintech affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has acquired a significant stake in the Vietnamese digital payment firm eMonkey as part of the Chinese fintech unicorn's strengthening efforts to capture more global opportunities, according to a report in Caixin.
BEIJING - China's State newsagency, Xinhua, is reporting that the leaders of Japan and South Korea will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping here today amid heightened concerns that North Korea may be about to return to confrontation with Washington.
HONG KONG - Asia is ending 2019 not with a bang but a whimper as investment and consumptions sag on beleaguered domestic demand and worsened external conditions, exacerbated by the US-China trade-war, says Natixis in a year-end review.
HANOI - The National Assembly of Vietnam has adopted a new Labour Code after an amendment process lasting nearly four years. It will take effect from January l, 2021.
SHANGHAI - Alibaba has disclosed a string of leadership changes , marking continued restructuring at the Chinese e-commerce giant after Daniel Zhang took the helm as executive chairman from founder Jack Ma in September.
BEIJING - China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has issued Interim Measures on Social Insurance Contributions for Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao Residents to take effect on January 1, 2020.
BEIJING - Trade between China and Russia is expected to hit a record high of US$110 billion this year, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) announced.
HONG KONG - After experiencing rapid slowdown in 2019, China's, economy is expected to moderate its deceleration in 2020, according to Natixis, which says the general slowdown pattern is in line with structural trends such as aging, high leverage, and, more recently, geopolitical tensions. However, the economic slowdown will become more moderate, Natixis says, due to both the base effect (2019 has been a difficult year) and continuation of demand policies (fiscal and monetary).
CANBERRA - In an assessment of the Australian Government's mid-year fiscal update today, HSBC suggests that Australia could end up with budget surpluses at the same time as having an (effective) zero-policy rate and central bank sovereign bond buying. "This would be a truly unusual policy configuration," HSBC says.